Cultivate abundance for people, plants and wildlife - Growing with Nature
Standing on the shoulders of giants. Giants with dirt under their nails
Striving to grow things as naturally, simply, and cheaply as possible!
My YouTube channel
Examine your lifestyle, multiply it by 7.7 billion other ego-monkeys with similar desires and query whether that global impact is conscionable.
Tj Jefferson wrote:Daron,
I am with you, fungi and moisture. The fungi make up for my mistakes, and the moisture removes some of the variability at the root level and makes me look like I know what I am doing.
You eat Turkey Tail? I tried it once, that was enough for me. Oyster is my jam!
Additional mulch delivery site mulchr.com. Free for you. I get most of my mulch by asking trucks at the gas station when I am picking up coffee grounds. Two birds- one stone. I literally had to ask for a reprieve on chips for a couple months because I got over a hundred loads last year. So yes you can get too much. But again I am mulching huge areas with a dump trailer and skid steer. Most houses would need one or two loads a year, the gas station method is probably adequate.
Cultivate abundance for people, plants and wildlife - Growing with Nature
Steve Thorn wrote:I believe that mulching can be one of the simplest and most rewarding ways to increase abundance!
It slows evaporation of water from the soil and introduces organic matter, which maintains a good moist habitat for beneficial organisms, which develops high soil fertility, which encourages stronger and deeper roots, which all increase the health and disease resistance of the plant- helping it reach full production of full flavored, nutrient dense food!
It's a chain of permaculture awesomeness!
Cultivate abundance for people, plants and wildlife - Growing with Nature
Jondo Almondo wrote:Our local government body slashes the roadside grass throughout the year.
I constantly survey what's growing where so that when a slash occurs, I can cart loads of mulch that are known quantities.
One pile for mulch with grass-seeds, another for weed-seeds and the other for pure 'straw'.
The seeded piles sprout all their germs while in storage or are submerged in water until fetid.
Slasher grass is a much better mulch than lawn clippings which are shredded so fine that they don't last long.
It's better than bales because no seed, finer texture, retains more N and breaks down more readily.
I'm envious of great big piles of woodchips, but it seems like cheating to just import masses of organic matter from another site to improve your own. Not to mention the energy intensive chipping and all the nitrogen lost to the atmosphere in the process.
Sure its a waste product, but its also ecological madness and very inefficient.
Mulch helps me grow a crop of mushrooms as an understorey in my garden beds.
It also has potential downsides such as suppressing volunteerism, increasing seed-rot and insect populations.
But these traits are less important than maintaining soil fertility and biology.
Cultivate abundance for people, plants and wildlife - Growing with Nature
Daron Williams wrote:I mulch everything I can get a little bit crazy about it but so far nothing but good results. I have even noticed areas that were grass and just bone dry getting more moist after I mulched with no rain. My guess is it just retains moisture moving through the soil and/or helps to collect dew each night since this area has decent humidity even in the dry summer. Have you noticed this when you mulch?
Striving to grow things as naturally, simply, and cheaply as possible!
My YouTube channel
Cultivate abundance for people, plants and wildlife - Growing with Nature
So I have a simple question for you all--why do you mulch your garden and other plants?
Argue for your limitations and they are yours forever.
Daron Williams wrote:Nice! I still have some old soil moisture sensors and data loggers left over from my master's thesis... I think I will try setting those up and see what the sensors measure. It would be interesting to see if the soil moisture level would go up after mulching with no rain/watering. Could be a fun summer experiment!
Striving to grow things as naturally, simply, and cheaply as possible!
My YouTube channel
Cultivate abundance for people, plants and wildlife - Growing with Nature
The one thing the masses are serious about demanding from their leaders is delusion.
Jondo Almondo wrote:I'm envious of great big piles of woodchips, but it seems like cheating to just import masses of organic matter from another site to improve your own. Not to mention the energy intensive chipping and all the nitrogen lost to the atmosphere in the process. Sure its a waste product, but its also ecological madness and very inefficient.
New location. Zone 6b, acid soil, 30+ inches of water per year.
https://growingmodernlandraces.thinkific.com/?ref=b1de16
Growingmodernlandraces.com affiliate
Lauren Ritz wrote:
Jondo Almondo wrote:I'm envious of great big piles of woodchips, but it seems like cheating to just import masses of organic matter from another site to improve your own. Not to mention the energy intensive chipping and all the nitrogen lost to the atmosphere in the process. Sure its a waste product, but its also ecological madness and very inefficient.
If I can improve my soil with something someone else would have thrown away, and save them money in the process, where's the madness and inefficiency? I should think it's far more "inefficient" to have all that mass end up in a landfill, at a high cost to the tree service, and still have all the nitrogen loss, chipping, gas use, etc. Those things are generally done on site, long before the load would be delivered to the landfill.
Cultivate abundance for people, plants and wildlife - Growing with Nature
Greetings from Brambly Ridge
Examine your lifestyle, multiply it by 7.7 billion other ego-monkeys with similar desires and query whether that global impact is conscionable.
I'm envious of great big piles of woodchips, but it seems like cheating to just import masses of organic matter from another site to improve your own
Standing on the shoulders of giants. Giants with dirt under their nails
I think Permaculture is most useful and anarchic when we can grow abundance with no inputs or finances. I like the idea of permies doing their own thing, while mountains of woodchips gather at the local depot.
The excess resource would prompt authorities to either assess their land management strategy or encourage them to do more landscaping/composting to the public benefit.
Standing on the shoulders of giants. Giants with dirt under their nails
Cultivate abundance for people, plants and wildlife - Growing with Nature
Ruth Meyers wrote:I'm in love with mulch...
Gee, I wish I could pee into the watering can. I have to use a bucket. And it goes directly onto the mulch too.
Sincerely,
Ralph
Cultivate abundance for people, plants and wildlife - Growing with Nature
Maureen Atsali
Wrong Way Farm - Kenya
Greetings from Brambly Ridge
Sincerely,
Ralph
New location. Zone 6b, acid soil, 30+ inches of water per year.
https://growingmodernlandraces.thinkific.com/?ref=b1de16
Growingmodernlandraces.com affiliate
Lauren Ritz wrote:In some circumstances biomass must be either brought from outside, or cultivated over a period of years. I would rather not work fifteen or twenty years for soil I can actually use. If I can get biomass from outside, I'm going to. Even better if that biomass is something that would have otherwise ended up in a landfill.
Cultivate abundance for people, plants and wildlife - Growing with Nature
Visit Redhawk's soil series: https://permies.com/wiki/redhawk-soil
How permies.com works: https://permies.com/wiki/34193/permies-works-links-threads
Cultivate abundance for people, plants and wildlife - Growing with Nature
"Disturbance is critical" Joel Salatin
Cultivate abundance for people, plants and wildlife - Growing with Nature
Nicola Stachurski wrote:The other thing about mulching, and using what is a 'waste" product, is that you are turning it into abundance. A decade down the track, you will have a rich soil and probably enough plants producing their own mulch. And people in your neighbourhood will be able to see your fertile soil and systems.
A picture paints a thousand words, and seeing a property with superior fertility will inspire others. To be honest, at this stage, we need to convince all the people we can to take up natural gardening, which includes trapping carbon in soils. If we convert a waste stream into fertility, we build not just our own garden, but the place where others may be inspired. And they can start tapping into that stream of 'waste" after we have, to build their own place of abundance.
Cultivate abundance for people, plants and wildlife - Growing with Nature
Daron Williams wrote:Jan - thank you for sharing! Your vineyard looks great! You might like this article that was put out by a nursery in my area about how farmers are growing native plants in their vineyards to benefit wildlife and their grapes: http://fourthcornernurseries.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/FourthCornerCatalog-2018-19.pdf
The link takes you to a digital copy of their catalog which has the article in it. Starts on the cover and continues on page 10. Setup kinda like a newspaper.
Edit: Just wanted to add... the article focuses on native plants but I don't see any reason why this approach would not work with non-native plants too if that was a better fit for your situation. Though I'm always a fan of using native plants when possible
"Disturbance is critical" Joel Salatin
SHILOH SPRINGS is more than just a Place, it is a Vision & Mission of how we should live together, treat the earth through technology, how we treat our animals, our land, but most importantly, each other!
For my next feat, I will require a volunteer from the audience! Perhaps this tiny ad?
Special fundraiser JUST for the permaculture bootcamp!
https://permies.com/w/bel-fundraiser
|